Who could have guessed that a haji food joint named “Babylon Restaurant” would be a hive of degeneracy?

BBC:

A restaurant has been closed down by police investigating the rape of two teenage girls.

Officers said they had “reasonable grounds” to suspect the Babylon Restaurant in Peterborough has been used for serious child sex offences.

Five people – including three 18-year-old men and a 16-year-old boy – have been arrested on suspicion of rape.

Supt Andy Gipp, of Cambridgeshire Police, said the closure was part of an “ongoing investigation”.

Officers said the restaurant and shisha lounge on Lincoln Road was issued with a 48-hour temporary closure order citing the Sexual Offences Act 2003, on 15 January.

Two days later, they said an application was successfully made to magistrates to shut the premises down for three months.

The order states there are “reasonable grounds for believing that in the past three months the premises were used for activities related to a specific child sex offence, or the premises are likely to be used for such activities”.

Police said the two teenagers were attacked during the weekend of 11-12 January.

Eleven members of a gang that were convicted of sexually exploiting hundreds of women after one victim managed to escape from a London brothel were sentenced to prison on Thursday.

The Metropolitan police said the woman, now aged 26, had escaped the property in Church Road, Newham, by climbing over a garden fence after being left alone.

The victim was brought to the UK from Hungary in 2013 and taken to brothels in Peterborough and London.

Police said she had started a relationship with 30-year-old Jeno Burai while in Hungary, but he had actually been grooming her for exploitation.

Burai began abusing and beating the woman and threatened to kill her, the Met said.

She was forced to work as a prostitute in Hungary and Austria before Burai brought her to the UK in July 2013.

The woman was then taken to a brothel on Star Road in Peterborough where she was sometimes made to sleep with more than 10 men a day.

According to the Met, Burai sold the woman to Zsolt Blaga, a 38-year-old Hungarian national in Peterborough also known as “Snake,” to settle a debt.

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A ‘predatory’ restaurant owner has been jailed for 13 years after he groomed girls as young as 12  for sex with McDonald’s burgers, cash, cigarettes and alcohol.

Pakistani born Mohammed Khubaib befriended girls and then ‘hooked’ them with alcohol – normally vodka – in an attempt to make them ‘compliant’ to his sexual advances.

The letting agent met his victims through his Peterborough restaurant ‘Zaika’ before taking them to properties under his control.

Married businessman Khubaib, 43, had a ‘persistent and almost predatory interest’ in teenage girls, the Old Bailey heard.

Following a trial, he was found guilty of forcing a 14-year-old girl to perform a sex act on him and nine counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, involving girls aged from 12 to 15, between November 2010 and January 2013.

Khubaib is the 10th man to be convicted following operation Erle – a multi-agency investigation into child sex crimes in Peterborough set in train in the wake of the Rotherham and Rochdale child abuse cases.

Today, Judge Peter Rook QC sentenced him to 13 years in jail for the rape extended for five years on licence.

For each of the trafficking offences, he sentenced him to either four or two years, all to run concurrently.

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Child sex abuse probe codenamed Operation Erle passes landmark figure of 100 years in jail for offenders as man is convicted of attacks on 12-year-old:

A leading detective has warned child sex offenders there is “nowhere to hide’ as an ongoing paedophile investigation ‘Operation Erle’ passed a milestone.

Operation Erle, a joint Peterborough City Council and police investigation into child sex abuse, has just secured its ninth conviction with jail terms totalling more than 100 years.

The most recent conviction was Mohammed Abbas who groomed a 12-year-old girl before abusing her, and was jailed for 12 years.

Detective Superintendent Gary Ridgway said detectives would do everything in their power to bring offenders to justice after Abbas (30) became the ninth offender to be jailed as part of Operation Erle.

Judges have now handed out sentences totalling 101 years and nine months, with more trials expected to take place in the future.

Det Supt Ridgway said: “The 100 year milestone is a real achievement for police and children’s services and sends such a strong message to men who believe that troubled young people are fair game to be exploited.

“These men have relied on intimidation and control to keep their victims from coming forward. But these cases show that they cannot escape justice and there is nowhere for them to hide.

“We have worked tirelessly with children’s services to empower the young people and give them a voice to speak out about their abuse. They have shown tremendous bravery in standing up to their abusers and helping to bring them to justice.

“We must not forget that the main objective for Operation Erle is to ensure that young people are kept safe and have an opportunity to lead fulfilling and satisfying lives.

“Our colleagues in children’s services and the NSPCC have provided fantastic support to many of the young people affected and it would be wrong not to acknowledge that.”

During the last financial year, Peterborough City Council spent £1,398,763 on Operation Erle, supporting victims and working alongside detectives in their investigation.

Sue Westcott, executive director of children’s services for Peterborough City Council, said: “So far we have seen nine men and boys jailed for more than 100 years for the awful crimes they have committed against vulnerable children in Peterborough. This is a positive result and could not have been achieved without the bravery of the girls who felt able to talk to our social workers and the police about what was happening to them. Without their courage to stand up in court and relive some of the most traumatic and personal experiences we would not have secured these convictions.

“We will continue to work closely with the police to uncover child sexual exploitation in our area and bring those responsible to justice.

“If you are a young person and you think you are being exploited or ill-treated, or if you are a parent or guardian and have concerns about your child, please get in touch and talk to us confidentially. We have dedicated social workers who you can talk to who can help to keep you safe. We also appeal to people involved with young people and children to be vigilant.

“Along with the police and other partners we need to work very hard to beat these men who prey on young people. But we cannot do it alone – we need everyone to be on the lookout.”

Abbas, formally of Gladstone Street, Peterborough, groomed the girl when she was 12 years old and took her to a park where he tried to have sex with her.

He would drive her around in his black BMW and take her to houses in Peterborough for sex. She would often not return home for several days. He was jailed at Peterborough Crown Court after being found guilty of two counts of sexual assault on a girl under 13 by penetration and two specimen charges of sexual activity with a child at a retrial. He had denied all offences.

The cultural enrichment train just keeps on chugging in Soviet Britain.

Oh, the vibrancy.

BBC:

Two sex attackers from Peterborough who targeted teenage girls via Facebook have been jailed.

Yasir Ali, 28, received a 20-year term at Cambridge Crown Court, while Daaim Ashraf, 19, was sentenced to 12 years in a young offenders institution.

The offences relate to eight teenage girls, the youngest of whom was 13.

The men’s victims were collected from their homes and taken to secluded spots or to a hotel and plied with alcohol, the men’s trial was told.

The offences took place between 2008 and 2013 and involved girls from Peterborough, Lincolnshire and Rutland. The pair were convicted in May after a two-month trial.

Prosecutor Patricia Lynch said the girls had been used as “sex objects”.

Police said six of the victims were abused at a hotel in Peterborough in January and February last year. One victim was filmed on a mobile phone.

Two victims were raped in cars at Ferry Meadows in 2008 and 2010 and another girl was raped in an alleyway in Stamford, police said.

BBC Look East’s Louise Hubball said Judge Mark Lucraft told Ali he was “dangerous”, with Ashraf laughing as his sentence was passed.

A gang groomed vulnerable young girls through Facebook before plying them with alcohol and raping them, a court heard yesterday.

Yasir Ali, 28, Daaim Ashraf, 19, Akash Yashin, 18, Mohammed Aslam, 24, and James Daly, 25, were involved in a sex ring spanning five years, it was said.

It was alleged that after messaging their eight female victims, who were between 13 and 16 at the time, over social media, ring leader Ali, along with Ashraf, began grooming them.

The young white girls, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were encouraged to meet up with the men – four of whom are Pakistani – and were plied with alcohol, Cambridge Crown Court heard.

They were driven around Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, by Ali – who used the nicknames ‘Mr Nice’ and ‘Sketcher Pidox’ on Facebook.

Mobile numbers would then be exchanged and the defendants, primarily Ali and Ashraf, would continue grooming the girls via Blackberry Messenger and text.

They would then meet up again and would go to a secluded location in cars or to a motel where the group of men would sexually exploit them.

The crown say the ‘vulnerable’ girls were picked out for their ‘very difficult backgrounds’ and thought they loved the gang members.

But they were ‘used as sex objects’ and the gang saw them as ‘worthless’ and ‘passed the girls around’.

Opening the case yesterday, Patricia Lynch, prosecuting, said Ali – the oldest of the gang – was ‘undoubtedly the primary offender’.

She said: ‘The girls were flattered and complimented and if I use the colloquial term, chatted up.

‘The girls would be driven from their home towns and villages and taken to Peterborough where they would be plied with alcohol en route and taken to secluded spots.

‘The messages by the main two defendants became increasingly sexual.

‘This resulted in the girls beginning to really like the defendants they were having contact with.

‘The grooming worked and the girls in fact began to love the defendants they were contacting, thinking it was a real relationship.

‘They found being driven round in flash cars, driving around Peterborough and being taken to hotels, they found that attractive.

‘Because of this grooming they thought these men wanted loving relationships.’

She added: ‘They thought they were respectful older men who gave them attention and that made them feel special.

‘But it was quite the opposite. The girls were being quite deliberately used for sex and passed around.

‘Their young age, their vulnerability, the grooming and the alcohol given to them negates any consent they could have given because it was not informed consent.

‘The girls were groomed, manipulated and plied with alcohol and they were simply being used as sex objects by these defendants who simply viewed them as worthless.’

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Victims of a child sex abuse ring have described feeling scared and vulnerable after their ordeals as five gang members were sentenced at the Old Bailey.

The men and teenagers, of Czech and Slovak Roma, and Kurdish backgrounds, raped and preyed on a total of five girls, including one with severe learning difficulties, in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, last year.

One victim was as young as 12.

The girls were forced to have sex with men for money, which was used to buy drugs and alcohol.

One of the victims, known only as girl D, said: “He controlled everything I did and I felt I could do nothing to stop him. I’ve lost my trust in men and don’t know what I would do if they tried to touch me.”

Girl E said: “I thought I love him and he made me feel special … then he became nasty towards me … I began to feel so low at that time I just wanted to go and jump in front of a car and die.”

One of the girls’ mothers also described how her once “bubbly” daughter had been transformed by the abuse.

Another victim, known as Girl A, said: “I felt upset and scared. The boys told me if I told police they would kill me and my family and I thought they would.

“I was worried people would laugh at me and wouldn’t be able to understand me because of how I speak and I was embarrassed about talking.

“After I left court it felt like a long time waiting and felt like nothing was happening. I thought the boys were going to get out and get me. I am still frightened they will kill me when they get out.”

Hassan Abdulla, 33, of Peterborough, was jailed for 20 years with a further five years under licence after he was convicted of four counts of rape and three counts of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity.

Zdeno Mirga, 18, known as “Skinny” and considered the ringleader of the gang, was sentenced to 16 and a half years in prison after he was convicted of eight counts of rape, four charges of sexual activity with a child and one count of inciting child prostitution.

Mirga’s offences related to two girls.

Renato Balog, 18, of Bretton, was jailed for 12 years after he was convicted of five rapes and three sexual assaults on three different girls.

Jan Kandrac, a 17-year-old from the Roma community, was jailed for five and a half years for rape and two counts of sexual touching.

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Four men will stand trial accused of running a sex ring which abused young teenage girls in Peterborough.

Yasir Ali, (28), Mohammed Aslam, (23), Daaim Ashraf, (19), and Akash Yasin, (18), are said to have sexually abused eight 14-year-old girls.

The charges include sex trafficking and rape but the indictment – which is likely to feature more than 20 counts – has not yet been finalised.

Legal teams are currently preparing the final documents for a hearing later this month.

The men did not appear at the Old Bailey in London for the hearing into the case on Friday.

The trial will be the second major court case looking into the sexual abuse of young girls in Peterborough, following conviction of five defendants earlier this year in a separate investigation.

The prosecution applied for the new case to be moved from Peterborough Crown Court.

Prosecutor Nicola Devas said: “It follows on the back of a not dissimilar trial which was heard in this court a short while ago.”

Mr Justice Sweeney agreed with the prosecution’s submission, and said a Peterborough court would not be able to host the trial.

He said: “This is not a case which can be accommodated at Peterborough in any event.”

The judge set the trial for March 24 at Cambridge Crown Court.

It is estimated to last between four and five weeks.

Ali, of Grange Road, Peterborough, Aslam, of Grange Road, Peterborough, and Ashraf and Yasin, of no fixed address, are due to enter their pleas to the indictment later this month on February 21.

The new case is unconnected to the previous sex ring case, which concluded in January: Two men and three boys guilty of sex offences.

Two men and three teenage boys have been found guilty of a series of rapes and sexual assaults on young girls.

Zdeno Mirga, 18, Hassan Abdulla, 33, and three boys were convicted at the Old Bailey. The Crown Prosecution Service said it was one of the “worst cases” of child sex abuse it had seen.

The group targeted five girls aged 13 and 14 in Peterborough. They are due to be sentenced on 20 February.

Mirga’s brother Dusan, 20, David Ziga, 19, and another teenager were cleared.

One of the group’s victims, referred to in court as Victim A, was a 13-year-old girl with a severe learning disability.

The gang congregated at a fried chicken takeaway in Peterborough and carried out their attacks at locations including a children’s playground, using what police described as “sophisticated” tactics to groom their victims.

After a trial lasting two-and-a-half months, the five were convicted of a total of 18 counts of rape, one of causing or inciting child prostitution, one of engaging in sexual activity with a child, three of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and three of sexual assault.

Judge John Bevan QC said: “Because some of the defendants do not speak good enough English, despite having lived here a long time, three interpreters have worked full time during this case, at a cost of over £30,000.”

He told the jury: “You have sat diligently and paid the closest of attention for weeks on end.

“It has been transparently obvious that you have been working very hard.”

He excused them from further jury service for the next 15 years.

Victim A described Zdeno Mirga, known as “Skinny”, as the gang’s boss, prosecutor Angela Rafferty said.

“He encouraged her, often very forcefully indeed, to give others… sex.

“He did this using the power he had over her at the time, or threatened her and sometimes he used violence against her.

“Skinny took her to parties where she was shared around sexually.”

The girl told police that Mirga “shared” her because he wanted money to buy cannabis and vodka, the court heard.

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A gypsy who charged a blind pensioner almost £50,000 for work worth just £1,000 has been jailed.

Adam Loveridge, 41, cold-called at his victim’s home and persuaded her that her porch and guttering needed fixing.

He then billed the 64 year-old for a staggering £49,000 – which she began paying in installments.

Over a year she paid out an extortionate £40,080 to Loveridge in a series of cheques until her bank became suspicious and contacted the police.

Loveridge initially claimed he could not read the amounts on the cheques because of his illiteracy but he eventually admitted six counts of fraud.

The conman, who lives on a caravan park in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, blew all but £3,000 of the money on gambling machines.

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